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NOVEMBER 7-11
LVIFSF ADVISORY BOARD
Lee Chambers
Lee has written, produced, and directed many films over the last 20 years with executive support from three Academy Award winners, including Roger Corman. He has guided over 2000 short films to completion as a College Film Professor in Canada.
Along with making films, Chambers is also a popular motivational speaker, panel moderator, and juror at film festivals in the USA, Canada, Australia, England, Iraq, and the Cayman Islands.
A double screenwriting nominee at the 2019 Northern Ontario Music and Film Awards. His work writing Hugh Jackman Saves the World won him, Screenwriter of the Year, in 2012 and he was nominated for the Director's Guild of Canada Ontario Award for directing When Life GIves You Lemons in 2011.
His directional feature debut, The Pineville Heist is currently in release around the world via sales from Shoreline Entertainment and Copenhagen Road short film launched at festivals in June 2019, Next up, is directing the short film, The Devil Knows You're Dead which will enter production in September.
Carlo Essagian
With principal acting roles in almost every medium, including a live Comedy performance in Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal, Essagian also enjoys venturing behind the camera as producer/director/writer in the multi-award wind short film, Love Thongs.
Originally from Montreal, Essagian is a pioneering producer of the ACTRA (Montreal) Co-op Member Initiated Production(MIP) with the short film, Life of Smiley. Essagian also Produced and directed a Toronto Independent Production (TIP) short film, Drivers Test, where he received an award as Director (Boston International Film Festival 2007) and through Ouat Media.
A graduate from McGill University in Fim and Communications, Essagian is also a member of ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Television and Radio Artists), UDA (Union des Artistes), CMPA (Canadian Media Producers Association), and ACCT (Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television).
Jason Lor
Before graduating from San Francisco State University with a bachelor’s degree in Cinema, Jason had already started writing when he was in the 3rd Grade in Elementary school. He wrote about his days and adventures in his journals, whether with his friends or family. Soon enough, he decided to get creative and make stories out of those everyday adventures but from a different point of view. A creative point of view. Thus started his goal of becoming a writer for novels. This soon changes when he comes to realize how much he loved movies. The characters and worlds coming to life on the big screen fascinated him, and that is what he truly wanted with his stories. Thus began a new chapter in his writing journey, which is to become a writer and a Screenwriter. He continues to write and has never stopped.
Jason grew up when Screenwriting software like Final Cut Pro or Screenwriting classes were not available around his hometown of Chico. That, however, did not stop him from pursuing his passion. He would go to the bookstore every weekend searching for Screenplay textbooks and study as much as he could on how a screenplay should be written.
Jason finally moved to San Francisco, where he could finally attend San Francisco State University’s film program and learn what he needed to know about filmmaking along with his screenwriting. After three years of studying film, Jason graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Cinema. Afterward, Jason continued to pursue screenwriting as well as filmmaking.
Michelle Muldoon
Michelle Muldoon is a dual national writer/director (Canada and the U.K.) who calls Vancouver, British Columbia home. Michelle makes content inspired by the films she grew up watching with her father on snowy Sundays. She loves genre, and action films and focuses on telling stories from a female view.
Writing was Michelle’s first love in film, but once she made her first short film there was no turning back from Directing. It was the perfect replacement for her first passion in life, volleyball. As a nationally certified coach, Michelle graduated sixteen players onto university teams across North America. She uses her skillset in planning, strategizing and communication every day she’s on set.
Michelle has made six short form projects, as well as produced the independent feature film Puppet Killer, which hit the festival circuit in 2019. The film had a limited release with Regal Cinemas after the successful festival run.
Michelle’s last project, the Western concept film Last Stand to Nowhere, screened at twenty-seven festivals in seven countries including the exclusive 2019 Almeria Western Film Festival where Michelle was the sole female Director. The film spent the summer of 2019 exhibiting in the Museum of the Southwest alongside the work of artist Felice House.
As a Board Member of Women in Film and Television Vancouver (WIFTV), Michelle created the Vancouver International Women in Film Festival Screenplay Competition and after three years of teaching the Introductory Screenwriting Workshop for Raindance Vancouver, she now teaches an online program.
In 2019 Michelle Muldoon was named one of eight female directors accepted into the Women in the Director’s Chair Story and Leadership Program and in 2020 was a part of the Women in Focus Mentorship Program at the Whistler Film Festival.